Isaiah 60:1-6 (Good News Translation)
Arise, Jerusalem, and shine like the sun;
The glory of the Lord is shining on you!
2 Other nations will be covered by darkness,
But on you the light of the Lord will shine;
The brightness of his presence will be with you.
3 Nations will be drawn to your light,
And kings to the dawning of your new day.
4 Look around you and see what is happening:
Your people are gathering to come home!
Your sons will come from far away;
Your daughters will be carried like children.
5 You will see this and be filled with joy;
You will tremble with excitement.
The wealth of the nations will be brought to you;
From across the sea their riches will come.
6 Great caravans of camels will come, from Midian and Ephah.
They will come from Sheba, bringing gold and incense.
People will tell the good news of what the Lord has done!
Matthew 2:1-12 (New International Version)
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod,
Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked,
“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?
We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.
5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time
the star had appeared.
8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child.
As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, a
nd the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them
until it stopped over the place where the child was.
10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary,
and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures
and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod,
they returned to their country by another route.
Arise, Jerusalem, and shine like the sun;
The glory of the Lord is shining on you!
2 Other nations will be covered by darkness,
But on you the light of the Lord will shine;
The brightness of his presence will be with you.
3 Nations will be drawn to your light,
And kings to the dawning of your new day.
4 Look around you and see what is happening:
Your people are gathering to come home!
Your sons will come from far away;
Your daughters will be carried like children.
5 You will see this and be filled with joy;
You will tremble with excitement.
The wealth of the nations will be brought to you;
From across the sea their riches will come.
6 Great caravans of camels will come, from Midian and Ephah.
They will come from Sheba, bringing gold and incense.
People will tell the good news of what the Lord has done!
Matthew 2:1-12 (New International Version)
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod,
Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked,
“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?
We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.
5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time
the star had appeared.
8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child.
As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, a
nd the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them
until it stopped over the place where the child was.
10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary,
and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures
and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod,
they returned to their country by another route.
Reflection
So I’m reading the lectionary for today and guess what it’s Matthew, it’s Epiphany, it’s more presents. And I’m looking at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew and I think: “Well, this is interesting.”- the Bible is like that: very interesting for what it says and for what it doesn’t say.
Hey you all have bibles near you, take a look – Matthew 1:1-17 it’s all about who this Jesus is going to be and where he fits into Jewish history. The lineage of Jesus starting with Abraham all the way to David, then from David to the exile, and the exile to Joseph and Mary and Jesus.
Now we really have two accounts of the lineage of Jesus this one in Matthew, and a similar but divergent one found in Luke 3:23-38 that starts with Jesus and Joseph and goes all the to Adam, son of God.
And it so happens we have two accounts of the birth of Jesus. I know, we call it the Christmas story and in our minds and Christmas Eve service we have sort of reduced it all into one unified flowing story but scripture is a bit more complex and complicated than that.
Matthew wants you to know right off the bat that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, who has come to save Israel and look at this Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and so on to King David and a United Israel, Jesus is a descendant of this line and only after he has brought you up to date through the exile and the return to the time of Jesus does Matthew really begin his story.
So by the way, we call it the Christmas story, we celebrate it on Dec. 25th but the Jews weren’t really keen on birthdays so we don’t have any idea when Jesus was born.
There is some speculation about the shepherds and sheep in Luke and it being spring but there is no evidence that shepherds didn’t graze their flocks all year round so it is only speculation. The early concern was not to celebrate Jesus’ birthday but to answer the question “How can Jesus be the Messiah?”
And so Matthew tells you: “ You know Jesus the carpenter, the son of a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee; Well, he comes from a royal line that stretches all the way back to King David himself and if you look even a little bit farther (14 generations a sacred number being a multiple of 7; the perfect number in Judaism) you will find that it goes all the way to Abraham – and is thus linked to the promises of God to Israel.
And there are other interesting things about Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth with Joseph rather than Mary figuring prominently. Mary is already pregnant and when Joseph finds out, he wants to call off the wedding, but he also wants to shield Mary from any disgrace. Then, Joseph has a dream and an angel speaks to him; telling him to go ahead with the marriage, that he will have a son and to name him Jesus – (well really to name him Yeshua: God saves, which is Joshua but that gets translated to Iesous in Greek and we know him as Jesus). Matthew then quotes Isaiah 7:14:
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin( or young woman) will conceive
and give birth to a son, and will call him
Immanuel. (God with us)
That’s it! Joseph wakes up, does exactly what the angel said to do, he marries Mary, does not have sexual relations with her, and when the baby was born, he names him Jesus.
So far so good, but see how quickly everything happens; 7 verses (Matthew 1: 18-25). And now is the exciting part – as if, that was not exciting enough, we get to chapter 2 in Matthew and it begins with the story of the Magi.
The astrologers or wise men who come from Babylon way, and they come from the east following a star that tells them that something monumental is happening, They stop off in Jerusalem asking where the newborn King of the Jews is to be found, King Herod of the Jews hears about them and their questions and gathers all his chief priests and scribes, who are as frightened as he is by the events, and he asks them“ Where is this Messiah to be born?” They reply, quoting scripture from Micah, that he should be looking in Bethlehem.
OK, I didn’t get to the exciting part yet, Herod the devious character that he is, arranges a secret meeting with the astrologers, we don’t know how many wise men there were, but we do know they brought three gifts, and he gets them to tell him when they noticed the star and in exchange he tells them about the Bethlehem prophecy.
“Go find this child. Leave no stone unturned. As soon as you find him, send word and I’ll join you at once in your worship.” So off they go, following their star until it hovered over a certain place in Bethlehem and they present their gifts and kneel and worship the babe. However, in a dream they are warned not to report back to Herod and so they leave and return to their own country without a trace.
Then Joseph has another dream with an angel who tells him to flee into Egypt because Herod wants to kill their baby. And off they go living in Egypt until Herod’s death. Good thing because when the wise men from the east don’t return to Jerusalem, Herod decrees that all male children under two in and around Bethlehem be killed.
With Herod’s death Joseph has another dream directing him to take his family and return to Israel and yet another dream, which tells him to go to Galilee, which he does ending up in Nazareth.
That’s it, the Christmas story in Matthew. Not only is this story different from the one told in Luke, that is we don’t have the whole story of Elizabeth and Zechariah and their son, John, and Mary as a central character, angels and shepherds, but, and this is the exciting part: this story points us in the direction of the story of Moses in Exodus.
Moses, who survives a massacre declared by a frightened Pharaoh. Pharaoh, the evil ruler, has heard from his sages that a child who is predestined to rule will be born, and so orders the killing of all male children in Egypt.
Amram, Moses’ father, in spite of the decree, at a time when most just forgo procreation, gains the favour of God who blesses Amram and his wife with Moses.
Moses is saved from the death decree when he is put in a basket, which is released into the reeds of the river to be found by the Pharaoh’s daughter, who raises Moses with the help of Jewish midwives.
Moses, later, with the whole of the Hebrew people, escape from Egypt to Israel. The reverse route is followed by Jesus and family as they escape from the death decree of the evil ruler, Herod, moving from Israel to Egypt. And back to Israel, to Galilee, to Nazareth when the threat is over.
Moses, the giver of the law, who saves his people from the tyranny of Egypt and brings them to the land of milk and honey. what we could call heaven on earth.
Matthew is telling us that this Messiah, this predestined baby, this Jesus, is the new Moses. Or the renewed Moses, if we take seriously Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is the new law from the new Mount Sinai by the new Moses.
What a future Matthew paints for this baby, what a future Matthew holds out to Israel. It reads like our scripture from Isaiah::
Arise, Jerusalem, and shine like the sun;
The glory of the Lord is shining on you!
…on you the light of the Lord will shine;
The brightness of his presence will be with you...
Look around you and see what is happening:
Your people are gathering to come home!
Your sons will come from far away;
Your daughters will be carried like children.
You will see this and be filled with joy;
You will tremble with excitement…
People will tell the good news of what the Lord has done!
Maybe Matthew doesn’t sound like our Christmas Eve service but the light that shines through the Gospel of Matthew is one that lasts a lot longer than just a week or two of celebrations.
Matthew’s gospel announces that Jesus the Messiah has come, and he will usher in the Kingdom of God in the here and now. Matthew tells us that the tyranny of power whether that be held by Pharaoh or Herod, will be overcome, and that Jesus, the renewed Moses will show us the way.
Jesus, the new Moses, reveals to us, not the laws of God, which we must follow or be chastised like disobedient children, but the new law of relationship; of loving God and loving our neighbour as ourselves.
Jesus becomes for us the revelation of God. Jesus’ life and stories show us the way to live within this Kingdom of God which is here and now but always coming. Jesus reveals to us the loving, gracious character of God, Abba and invites us to embrace our rightful place within that relationship.
May we live into Jesus’ invitation. Amen
So I’m reading the lectionary for today and guess what it’s Matthew, it’s Epiphany, it’s more presents. And I’m looking at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew and I think: “Well, this is interesting.”- the Bible is like that: very interesting for what it says and for what it doesn’t say.
Hey you all have bibles near you, take a look – Matthew 1:1-17 it’s all about who this Jesus is going to be and where he fits into Jewish history. The lineage of Jesus starting with Abraham all the way to David, then from David to the exile, and the exile to Joseph and Mary and Jesus.
Now we really have two accounts of the lineage of Jesus this one in Matthew, and a similar but divergent one found in Luke 3:23-38 that starts with Jesus and Joseph and goes all the to Adam, son of God.
And it so happens we have two accounts of the birth of Jesus. I know, we call it the Christmas story and in our minds and Christmas Eve service we have sort of reduced it all into one unified flowing story but scripture is a bit more complex and complicated than that.
Matthew wants you to know right off the bat that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, who has come to save Israel and look at this Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and so on to King David and a United Israel, Jesus is a descendant of this line and only after he has brought you up to date through the exile and the return to the time of Jesus does Matthew really begin his story.
So by the way, we call it the Christmas story, we celebrate it on Dec. 25th but the Jews weren’t really keen on birthdays so we don’t have any idea when Jesus was born.
There is some speculation about the shepherds and sheep in Luke and it being spring but there is no evidence that shepherds didn’t graze their flocks all year round so it is only speculation. The early concern was not to celebrate Jesus’ birthday but to answer the question “How can Jesus be the Messiah?”
And so Matthew tells you: “ You know Jesus the carpenter, the son of a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee; Well, he comes from a royal line that stretches all the way back to King David himself and if you look even a little bit farther (14 generations a sacred number being a multiple of 7; the perfect number in Judaism) you will find that it goes all the way to Abraham – and is thus linked to the promises of God to Israel.
And there are other interesting things about Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth with Joseph rather than Mary figuring prominently. Mary is already pregnant and when Joseph finds out, he wants to call off the wedding, but he also wants to shield Mary from any disgrace. Then, Joseph has a dream and an angel speaks to him; telling him to go ahead with the marriage, that he will have a son and to name him Jesus – (well really to name him Yeshua: God saves, which is Joshua but that gets translated to Iesous in Greek and we know him as Jesus). Matthew then quotes Isaiah 7:14:
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin( or young woman) will conceive
and give birth to a son, and will call him
Immanuel. (God with us)
That’s it! Joseph wakes up, does exactly what the angel said to do, he marries Mary, does not have sexual relations with her, and when the baby was born, he names him Jesus.
So far so good, but see how quickly everything happens; 7 verses (Matthew 1: 18-25). And now is the exciting part – as if, that was not exciting enough, we get to chapter 2 in Matthew and it begins with the story of the Magi.
The astrologers or wise men who come from Babylon way, and they come from the east following a star that tells them that something monumental is happening, They stop off in Jerusalem asking where the newborn King of the Jews is to be found, King Herod of the Jews hears about them and their questions and gathers all his chief priests and scribes, who are as frightened as he is by the events, and he asks them“ Where is this Messiah to be born?” They reply, quoting scripture from Micah, that he should be looking in Bethlehem.
OK, I didn’t get to the exciting part yet, Herod the devious character that he is, arranges a secret meeting with the astrologers, we don’t know how many wise men there were, but we do know they brought three gifts, and he gets them to tell him when they noticed the star and in exchange he tells them about the Bethlehem prophecy.
“Go find this child. Leave no stone unturned. As soon as you find him, send word and I’ll join you at once in your worship.” So off they go, following their star until it hovered over a certain place in Bethlehem and they present their gifts and kneel and worship the babe. However, in a dream they are warned not to report back to Herod and so they leave and return to their own country without a trace.
Then Joseph has another dream with an angel who tells him to flee into Egypt because Herod wants to kill their baby. And off they go living in Egypt until Herod’s death. Good thing because when the wise men from the east don’t return to Jerusalem, Herod decrees that all male children under two in and around Bethlehem be killed.
With Herod’s death Joseph has another dream directing him to take his family and return to Israel and yet another dream, which tells him to go to Galilee, which he does ending up in Nazareth.
That’s it, the Christmas story in Matthew. Not only is this story different from the one told in Luke, that is we don’t have the whole story of Elizabeth and Zechariah and their son, John, and Mary as a central character, angels and shepherds, but, and this is the exciting part: this story points us in the direction of the story of Moses in Exodus.
Moses, who survives a massacre declared by a frightened Pharaoh. Pharaoh, the evil ruler, has heard from his sages that a child who is predestined to rule will be born, and so orders the killing of all male children in Egypt.
Amram, Moses’ father, in spite of the decree, at a time when most just forgo procreation, gains the favour of God who blesses Amram and his wife with Moses.
Moses is saved from the death decree when he is put in a basket, which is released into the reeds of the river to be found by the Pharaoh’s daughter, who raises Moses with the help of Jewish midwives.
Moses, later, with the whole of the Hebrew people, escape from Egypt to Israel. The reverse route is followed by Jesus and family as they escape from the death decree of the evil ruler, Herod, moving from Israel to Egypt. And back to Israel, to Galilee, to Nazareth when the threat is over.
Moses, the giver of the law, who saves his people from the tyranny of Egypt and brings them to the land of milk and honey. what we could call heaven on earth.
Matthew is telling us that this Messiah, this predestined baby, this Jesus, is the new Moses. Or the renewed Moses, if we take seriously Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is the new law from the new Mount Sinai by the new Moses.
What a future Matthew paints for this baby, what a future Matthew holds out to Israel. It reads like our scripture from Isaiah::
Arise, Jerusalem, and shine like the sun;
The glory of the Lord is shining on you!
…on you the light of the Lord will shine;
The brightness of his presence will be with you...
Look around you and see what is happening:
Your people are gathering to come home!
Your sons will come from far away;
Your daughters will be carried like children.
You will see this and be filled with joy;
You will tremble with excitement…
People will tell the good news of what the Lord has done!
Maybe Matthew doesn’t sound like our Christmas Eve service but the light that shines through the Gospel of Matthew is one that lasts a lot longer than just a week or two of celebrations.
Matthew’s gospel announces that Jesus the Messiah has come, and he will usher in the Kingdom of God in the here and now. Matthew tells us that the tyranny of power whether that be held by Pharaoh or Herod, will be overcome, and that Jesus, the renewed Moses will show us the way.
Jesus, the new Moses, reveals to us, not the laws of God, which we must follow or be chastised like disobedient children, but the new law of relationship; of loving God and loving our neighbour as ourselves.
Jesus becomes for us the revelation of God. Jesus’ life and stories show us the way to live within this Kingdom of God which is here and now but always coming. Jesus reveals to us the loving, gracious character of God, Abba and invites us to embrace our rightful place within that relationship.
May we live into Jesus’ invitation. Amen
